


Set Phasers to Kill

by Cjcorrigan



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cjcorrigan/pseuds/Cjcorrigan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short alternate ending to Day of the Dove.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Set Phasers to Kill

The Day of the Dove was also a day of grief and mourning. While the battle between Klingon forces and the U.S.S. Enterprise would be the reason the date went down in the history of the Stardate log, only few would remember the real enemy that day, the Beta XII-A, and the true damage it did.

The entity started the battle and controlled the participants like chess pieces who were fighting on the whims of a sadistic, malevolent player. Their memories and thoughts had been altered. The Enterprise's crew believed the Klingons had attacked and killed thousands. The Klingons thought the Enterprise had conducted and succeeded in a sneak attack against them. Neither was true.

As the battle began and procedeed, the pawns' hatred grew stronger, and the entity grew with it, feeding off their anger and wrath.

The combatants were enqual in number, the danger couldn't be stopped, and the weapons were limited. The attacks were brutal and feral in nature, the absolutely inconceivable anger driving everyone literally mad as they resorted to their basic instincts to conduct their affairs in war.

In the midst of it all, Pavel Chekov was really just a small, young boy, still learning, still only just beginning to learn of his limitless potential as he embarked on his journeys on the starship Enterprise as a navigator, yet as only a small, young boy he stood no chance against the entity's power.

Chekov had been born in Russia, an only child, but at the time, it didn't matter, as the Beta XII-A twisted his thoughts, his memory, his entire being to believe otherwords.

Piotr was his brother, younger than him by four years, ironic as it was that Piotr was allegedly only four when he was killed by the Klingons. Or that's what it made him believe. Words, never actually having been said, rang in his ears, as the fantasy of his woderful younger brother, his best friend, ran from their home into the field across the road towards the strange hunk of metal that had just fallen from the sky in flames.

"Pavel, let's go look!" Piotr had cried, tugging on his brother's sleeve.

"No!" Pavel objected, wrenching his arm away. "Fazer said not to leave ze house vhile he vas gone! He'll be back soon, ve can just vait until zen."

But the younger boy hadn't listened and ran to the field despite his brother's warning, leaving Pavel to curse the other child from the front porch steps, yelling his frustrations.

As Piotr got closer and closer to the metal object, he began to recognize it as a ship and the door was flung open. a ragged, burned humanoid creature, a Klingon, burst from the wreckage, startling Piotr, now only a mere few yards away into falling down. The Klingon noticed him immediately and grabbed the boy's ankle, pulling him closer, so close that he could smell the Klingon's breath and the odor of his burning flesh.

The Klingon's fingers wrapped around the boy's throat and squeezed, as he lifted him into the air. Back on the porch, Pavel's breath stopped, and the only thing he could think was "Run."

Pavel rushed towards the field and also towards the open road, and the Klingon tightened its grip. The light in Piotr's eyes faded as a car sped down the street just as Pavel stepped in. Though the horn blew as a warning, all he could register was the sight of his brother's limp, lifeless body being tossed aside. A fraction of a second later, the car made impact.

 Pavel recovered from his injuries, though a fractured spine caused him to spend many months weeping in bed alone, he hadn't even been able to go to his brother's funeral.

Of course, all this had never actually happened, but under the Beta XII-A's influence, to Pavel Chekov, it seemed like it had.

While his colleagues rushed to battle with the currently attacking Klingons, he percieved the one in front of him as the same one from that day. 

Close beside him, Spock saw the crew he'd helped manage and command for years fall, and was angered, though not so much towards the ones who attacked, but really towards the man who had ordered the attack in the first place, his best friend.

As Kirk finished off the Klingon soldier to his left and kicked down the one to his right, he left his back open, the perfect entry point for the Vulcan to target. Spock lept onto his back, wrapping his arms around his neck in a choke hold and pulling Kirk back on top of him.

As Kirk struggled to breathe, he wondered first and foremost why the sleeve of the arm choking him, which he could just barely glimpse was bright blue, and not the dark charcoal of the Klingon uniform. The realization came over him as Spock's bash on his head did. Nausea came over him, though he couldn't be sure if it was from the blow or the fact that his most trusted friend was the one doing this to him.

The Beta XII-A had left the crew with only primitive means of fighting, so the closest weapon to Chekov was a machete sword covered in the blood of the last Klingon to wield it. Picking it up, he swiped frantically at the approaching enemy combatants, his movements anything but graceful, but timed well enough to protect himself, despite the fact that his vision was blurred with tears, of his false memories, of the real ones, and for the fallen crew he'd always called his family, because by the time he'd joined the Starfleet academy, he hadn't had his real one anymore.

It felt as though his head was literally on fire, the phantom pain of his back shattering triggered more, unwanted, phony memories to be concocted, which only made his head hurt worse. The conjoined mass of Kirk and Spock's bodies knocked into him, making him stumble and granting an oppenent to get in a hit, successfully cutting deep into Chekov's left bicep.

Pavel cried out, drowning out Kirk's strangled pleas to Spock. Fortunately for all three of them, Sulu, though injured and limping, was not too far from sanity to think his crew was his enemy and cut down the Klingon attacking Chekov, who was now lying in the fetal position, sobbing as his opponent pounded into his back. That Klingon was the last in its fleet. Now seemingly satisfied by the work it had done, the Beta-XII-A slipped from the minds of the remaining crew members, letting clear judgement back into their thoughts.

This came not a second too soon for Captain Kirk, as his vision was filled with black spots by the time Spock's arm fell from his neck. As he gasped for breath and rolled off his companion, Mr. Spock himself propped himself up on his elbows, unable to believe the irreparable damage he had almost caused. He put his head between his knees, so it was bowed enough that no one else saw his tears. Even so, he knew he was not the only one to know of their existence as Jim managed to move into a seated position beside him and put a soothing, understanding, and even forgiving hand on the Vulcan's back. As the Kirk regained his breath, Spock's became choppier as he shuddered and tried to push away the overwhelming emotion in the pit of his stomach and the bottom of his heart.

Sulu dropped his sword and took Pavel into his arms, carrying the wounded boy to the medical wing. Once he was stitched up, Chekov returned to his room.

After the general commotion had died down, Kirk sent all but Uhura, Spock, and Sulu away to rest off the shock and grief.

"I thought you said Chekov was an only child, but when the Klingons declared their attack, he said his brother had been killed by one," Kirk said to Sulu.

"His record reports that his only family was his father who passed away from sickness less than a year before he joined the academy," Sulu reported back, checking the young man's file from his work station just to make sure the information was correct.

"No," Uhura began, "back when we were at the academy, he was a freshman when i was a senior. I first met him when i found him beneath the stairwell during the lunch break. He had been picked on by some of the jerks in there for his accent the last time he went into the cafeteria, so he hid under there to keep away from them. I felt sorry for the kid so I started eating with him each day and thats when we became such close friends. He told me once that he had had a baby brother, but that he had died with his mother in a car accident. You don't think... I mean Pavel was only two at the time, he didn't even remember the kid."

"Whatever it was that took over us must've taken that information and used it to influence him in some way," Kirk decided. "I just hope the kid's okay now, i mean, the rest of us are back to normal, I've just never seem him act so... dangerously before."

"He's probably just reeling from it all. I'll go check on him before I go to my room," Uhura told him.

"I want to make sure he's alright myself, if you don't mind," Jim said, standing from his Captain's chair. "You go on to bed and get a good night's rest. Tomorrow I'd like to get as far from here as possible."

There was a general consensus of "Yes, Captain," as he left the main room and entered the halls to go to Chekov's cabin.

He came upon the door and knocked quietly, asking through the steel, "Commander? I wanted to make sure you were alright before turning in myself. Everything good in there?"

His picked up the unmistakable sound of a hand-held phaser going off and as he rushed through the entrance to see no one but Pavel on the floor, he remembered the last thing he said before finding the ships weapons inoperable and falling prey to the Beta XII-A's mind games:

 "Set phasers to kill."


End file.
